


Finite Spaces

by NicoleAnell



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26335849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleAnell/pseuds/NicoleAnell
Summary: An interlude shortly after "Praimfaya". For Emori, life in space is still a little uneasy.
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Finite Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this way back during the pre-S5 hiatus for a "Memori week" on tumblr, but never got around to sharing it on AO3. Canon came along and shifted things a bit obviously, but I guess I'm feeling nostalgic for those 'Book One' days.

When the fires die down, the orange glow of the planet fades over time, becomes a dull brown and grey rock in the distance. She asked John if it always looked that way, and he told her it didn’t, it was greener before. He never really cared to stare that much at it. He never believed he was going down there.

(She would ask if he’s happy he did, but she knows the answer. He’s told her that already. The brushes with death, the torture, the starving, and yes he was happy, _yes_ he would take nothing back because it brought him to her. And she would take none of it back either. She’s selfish in this.)

Emori stares too often out the window to Earth. She never _plans_ to, only becomes transfixed every time it’s in her path. They don’t trust her yet to spacewalk alone. They shouldn’t. Raven gives her instructions, helps her take off her gear, sends her back to her dorm where she fully intends to meet John and kiss him and make love to him before dinner.

He finds her at the window instead.

“No rain,” she sighs. “No sunlight.”

“Sun’s still there. It’s just… not doing anything useful from here.”

“I used to hate the rain,” she says, not quite hearing him.

“Are you freaking out?” he asks, light but gentle. “Like Echo?” There’s a twinge of fear behind it. _Should I not have-?_

Her head twitches in a half-shake, doesn’t take her eyes off the planet. “I like it up here. I’m so glad we’re here. I just keep thinking…”

“Of all the loved ones we left behind?” he finishes dryly.

She smirks, breaks her gaze to look at him finally. “Okay, no.” She traces his cheek with her finger, and he flinches reflexively but it’s good, it’s fine if she does it again. “I’m sorry you grew up in this place,” she says.

She means it. The Ark is stifling and numb, what remains of it – even if John says it was bigger then, it pains her to think it was all he knew once. Even when she goes out with Raven, even in that _freedom_ , their suits stay latched onto the ring like a chain. All the things she hated of her childhood, all the things that scarred her, seem far away now next to the fullness of that world. You could walk through the desert and never walk back the same way you came. You could lie to a person and never see their face again.

That _should_ feel true of this blackness, expansive and forever. They should find a way to take this ship and move in some unexplored direction until the Earth is nothing but a dot behind them. But it’s the only anchor they have here, the hope of going back. Homesickness bleeds out of all of them, even her. So they are trapped in one space, and once there is nothing else to explore…

“Do you think we’ll go mad?” she says, trying to keep a laugh in her voice, trying not to let the fear set in. Fear has never been worth anything.

“I’ve been there,” he tells her. “Smaller space than this. It doesn’t happen that fast.” And she believes him. But.

“You weren’t in there for five years.”

“You weren’t in there with me.” He wraps his arms tight around her, lets her head nestle under his chin. “I don’t need rain, I don’t need anything else.”

Another unspoken fear behind it. _Do you?_ he doesn't ask her. She hopes not. She feels more certain of it when he’s there, holding her. He is an anchor too, he is a finite thing she will one day finish exploring, finish being surprised by, but that thought has never worried her. That is having a home, with all its corners and cracks and safety. She hopes to love the Ark that way, but for now John will be enough.


End file.
